Hyderabad : The strained relations between the main opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC) have come to an abrupt end with the TJAC expelling the TDP from its ranks.

Professor Kodandaram, convenor of JAC said TDP was being expelled for the failure of its MLAs to resign in accordance with the decision taken by the JAC. The decision was taken at an extraordinary meeting of the JAC late on Friday and was attended by the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) President K Chandrasekhara Rao, Telangana ideologue K Jayashankar and members of other mass organisations.

With the expulsion of the TDP, JAC is left with only one major political party, the TRS. While the ruling Congress left the JAC on its own refusing to accept its decision that all the MLAs should resign, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was also lying low.

Tension was building between the TDP and JAC for quite some time as Telangana activists were targeting TDP leaders and their programmes and were holding demonstrations to demand their resignation. One such demonstration during TDP President Chandrababu Naidu's programme in Hyderabad led to violence as TDP workers beat up the lawyers holding the demonstration. TDP rejected the demand of JAC for an apology over the incident.

Last straw

What came as a last straw was Friday's incident in Mehbubnagar when the JAC supporters held a demonstration during Chandrababu Naidu's visit, demanding to know his stand on Telangana. The police arrested the protestors.

In a similar incident yesterday, police arrested ten Telangana supporters when they gheraoed the TDP MLA of Narsampet in Warangal district R Prakash Reddy. In protest against the arrest of Telangana activists, JAC has called a strike in Narsampet today.

JAC's decision to expel TDP evoked a strong reaction from the TDP. Its senior Telangana leader N Janardhan Reddy charged the JAC convenor Kodandarm with taking unilateral decisions at the behest of TRS president K Chandrasekhara Rao. "KCR is behind this conspiracy to tarnish the image of TDP. KCR and his other family members are taking the decisions and Kodandaram is announcing them", he said.

Janardhan Reddy wanted to know whether JAC's purpose was to strengthen Telangana movement on weaken it.

He announced that henceforth TDP's Telangana Forum will fight for Telangana on its own. He alleged that JAC was selective in targeting the TDP on resignation issue when the Congress leaders had also failed to resign and TRS MPs K Chandrasekhara Rao and Vijayshanti have also not resigned.

Pune (IANS) A month after a blast in Pune killed 17 people, city Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh yesterday charged the staff of the German Bakery and its customers with "utter negligence" and said the bag with the bomb had been lying unnoticed for over 90 minutes.

"It was not a few minutes or 10-15 minutes, more than one-and-half hours and yet nobody bothered to notice it... This is sheer carelessness on the part of the people," he said, addressing a rally of over 1,000 students at the Azad campus here. The event was organised by the Sakal Social Foundation.

According to Singh, the presence of the bag was also brought to the notice of the cashier by some customers of the bakery, but he was "too busy" in his work to even take note of it or bother to inform the police.

"Barely 20 minutes later, the bomb exploded there. I am sure that if the German Bakery staff and its patrons had exercised more awareness, the blast could have been prevented and so many innocent lives could have been saved," Singh said.

The blast on February 13 in Koregaon Park killed 17 people, including five foreigners.

Despite the multi-pronged investigations by several state and central agencies, the investigators seem to have drawn a blank in the motives behind the blast or its perpetrators.

State Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) chief K.P. Raghuvanshi said the investigations are progressing and they hope to crack the case soon. "We are examining it from all possible angles, nothing is being ruled out. But I will not speculate on whom we suspect. As soon as we are through, it shall be made public," Raghuvanshi said.

So far, over 100 suspects have been questioned and allowed to go.